There are many different types of wireless mobile devices being used in the world today including mobile phones, personal digital assistants, hand-held devices, etc. Wireless transport networks allow electronic content and electronic commerce information to be served and used on wireless mobile devices.
There are a number of problems associated with providing electronic content and electronic commerce information to wireless mobile devices.
One problem is that there are a large variety of wireless mobile devices being used today. It is difficult to provide electronic content and electronic commerce information in a format usable on all varieties of devices.
Another problem is that many mobile devices are not “location-aware.” Location-aware devices are aware of their current geographic location. Mobile telephones and Global Positioning System (“GPS”) devices may be aware of their current geographic location. GPS devices typically determine their current geographic location by communicating with satellites. Mobile telephones typically may determine their current geographic location by communicating with a particular mobile phone interface or telephony switch that provides coverage to a geographic location such as a telephony “cell.”
However, knowing a current geographic location is not useful if there is no association with a server that is capable of sending location-dependent information to the mobile device. For example, a user may have a mobile GPS device that is aware of it current geographic location and a severe weather event may be occurring in the geographic area. The mobile GPS device will have no way of accepting location-dependent information including the severe weather event.
Another problem is that there are a variety of transport protocols being used to communicate with wireless mobile devices. The variety of transport protocols makes it difficult to communicate with all varieties of devices.
Another problem is that because of the large number of protocols used with mobile devices, there is no standard interface for accepting electronic content and electronic commerce information on a wide variety of location-aware wireless mobile devices.
Another problem is that there is no standard message format used to generate display electronic information and electronic commerce information that is useable on a wide variety of wireless mobile electronic devices.
Another problem is that it is difficult to broadcast electronic content and commerce information in a format that is useable by a wide variety of wireless mobile devices. There have been attempts to solve some of the problems associated with broadcasting information to mobile devices in a generic format. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,245, to Ernst, et al., entitled “Location Based Selective Distribution of Generally Broadcast Information.” However, such systems require specialized hardware and software and still do not overcome all of the problems associated with broadcasting information to wireless mobile devices that are location aware.
This it is desirable to provide a network-independent location-aware protocol, interfaces, and a method and system for using the protocol and interfaces for location-aware wireless mobile devices. The protocol and interfaces should be usable over a large variety of wireless transport networks and on a large variety of location-aware wireless mobile devices.